61 research outputs found

    Source Coding When the Side Information May Be Delayed

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    For memoryless sources, delayed side information at the decoder does not improve the rate-distortion function. However, this is not the case for more general sources with memory, as demonstrated by a number of works focusing on the special case of (delayed) feedforward. In this paper, a setting is studied in which the encoder is potentially uncertain about the delay with which measurements of the side information are acquired at the decoder. Assuming a hidden Markov model for the sources, at first, a single-letter characterization is given for the set-up where the side information delay is arbitrary and known at the encoder, and the reconstruction at the destination is required to be (near) lossless. Then, with delay equal to zero or one source symbol, a single-letter characterization is given of the rate-distortion region for the case where side information may be delayed or not, unbeknownst to the encoder. The characterization is further extended to allow for additional information to be sent when the side information is not delayed. Finally, examples for binary and Gaussian sources are provided.Comment: revised July 201

    Lecture Notes on Network Information Theory

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    These lecture notes have been converted to a book titled Network Information Theory published recently by Cambridge University Press. This book provides a significantly expanded exposition of the material in the lecture notes as well as problems and bibliographic notes at the end of each chapter. The authors are currently preparing a set of slides based on the book that will be posted in the second half of 2012. More information about the book can be found at http://www.cambridge.org/9781107008731/. The previous (and obsolete) version of the lecture notes can be found at http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.3404v4/

    Slepian-Wolf Coding for Broadcasting with Cooperative Base-Stations

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    We propose a base-station (BS) cooperation model for broadcasting a discrete memoryless source in a cellular or heterogeneous network. The model allows the receivers to use helper BSs to improve network performance, and it permits the receivers to have prior side information about the source. We establish the model's information-theoretic limits in two operational modes: In Mode 1, the helper BSs are given information about the channel codeword transmitted by the main BS, and in Mode 2 they are provided correlated side information about the source. Optimal codes for Mode 1 use \emph{hash-and-forward coding} at the helper BSs; while, in Mode 2, optimal codes use source codes from Wyner's \emph{helper source-coding problem} at the helper BSs. We prove the optimality of both approaches by way of a new list-decoding generalisation of [8, Thm. 6], and, in doing so, show an operational duality between Modes 1 and 2.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figur

    Adaptive data acquisition for communication networks

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    In an increasing number of communication systems, such as sensor networks or local area networks within medical, financial or military institutions, nodes communicate information sources (e.g., video, audio) over multiple hops. Moreover, nodes have, or can acquire, correlated information sources from the environment, e.g., from data bases or from measurements. Among the new design problems raised by the outlined scenarios, two key issues are addressed in this dissertation: 1) How to preserve the consistency of sensitive information across multiple hops; 2) How to incorporate the design of actuation in the form of data acquisition and network probing in the optimization of the communication network. These aspects are investigated by using information-theoretic (source and channel coding) models, obtaining fundamental insights that have been corroborated by various illustrative examples. To address point 1), the problem of cascade source coding with side information is investigated. The motivating observation is that, in this class of problems, the estimate of the source obtained at the decoder cannot be generally reproduced at the encoder if it depends directly on the side information. In some applications, such as the one mentioned above, this lack of consistency may be undesirable, and a so called Common Reconstruction (CR) requirement, whereby one imposes that the encoder be able to agree on the decoder’s estimate, may be instead in order. The rate-distortion region is here derived for some special cases of the cascade source coding problem and of the related Heegard-Berger (HB) problem under the CR constraint. As for point 2), the work is motivated by the fact that, in order to enable, or to facilitate, the exchange of information, nodes of a communication network routinely take various types of actions, such as data acquisition or network probing. For instance, sensor nodes schedule the operation of their sensing devices to measure given physical quantities of interest, and wireless nodes probe the state of the channel via training. The problem of optimal data acquisition is studied for a cascade source coding problem, a distributed source coding problem and a two-way source coding problem assuming that the side information sequences can be controlled via the selection of cost-constrained actions. It is shown that a joint design of the description of the source and of the control signals used to guide the selection of the actions at downstream nodes is generally necessary for an efficient use of the available communication links. Instead, the problem of optimal channel probing is studied for a broadcast channel and a point-to-point link in which the decoder is interested in estimating not only the message, but also the state sequence. Finally, the problem of embedding information on the actions is studied for both the source and the channel coding set-ups described above

    Asynchronous Joint Source-Channel Communication: An Information-Theoretic Perspective

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    Due to the increasing growth and demand for wireless communication services, new techniques and paradigms are required for the development of next generation systems and networks. As a first step to better differentiate between various options to develop future systems, one should consider fundamental theoretical problems and limitations in present systems and networks. Hence, some common ground between network information theory and mobile/wireless medium techniques should be explicitly addressed to better understand future generation trends. Among practical limitations, a major challenge, which is inherent and due to the physics of many mobile/wireless setups, is the problem of asynchronism between different nodes and/or clients in a wireless network. Although analytically convenient, the assumption of full synchronization between the end terminals in a network is usually difficult to justify. Thus, finding fundamental limits for communication systems under different types of asynchronism is essential to tackle real world problems. In this thesis, we study information theoretic limits that various multiuser wireless communication systems encounter under time or phase asynchronism between different nodes. In particular, we divide our research into two categories: phase asynchronous and time asynchronous systems. In the first part of this thesis, we consider several multiuser networks with phase fading communication links, i.e., all of the channels introduce phase shifts to the transmitted signals. We assume that the phase shifts are unknown to the transmitters as a practical assumption which results in a phase asynchronism between transmitter sides and receiver sides. We refer to these communication systems as phase incoherent (PI) communication systems and study the problem of communicating arbitrarily correlated sources over them. Specifically, we are interested in solving the general problem of joint source-channel coding over PI networks. To this end, we first present a lemma which is very useful in deriving necessary conditions for reliable communication of the sources over PI channels. Then, for each channel and under specific gain conditions, we derive sufficient conditions based on separate source and channel coding and show that the necessary and sufficient conditions match. Therefore, we are able to present and prove several separation theorems for channels under study under specific gain conditions. In the second part of this thesis, we consider time asynchronism in networks. In particular, we consider a multiple access channel with a relay as a general setup to model many wireless networks in which the transmitters are time asynchronous in the sense that they cannot operate at the same exact time. Based on the realistic assumption of a time offset between the transmitters, we again consider the problem of communicating arbitrarily correlated sources over such a time-asynchronous multiple access relay channel (TA-MARC). We first derive a general necessary condition for reliable communication. Then, by the use of separate source and channel coding and under specific gain conditions, we show that the derived sufficient conditions match with the general necessary condition for reliable communications. Consequently, we present a separation theorem for this class of networks under specific gain conditions. We then specialize our results to a two-user interference channel with time asynchronism between the encoders

    Approximation techniques in network information theory

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    Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH
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